This Woman's Mission Is To Make Diversity The Norm

As a young, black Muslim woman working on a remote oil rig with an all-male crew, Yassmin Abdel-Magied knew she wasn’t her co-workers’ favorite person. That didn’t stop this engineer, author, broadcaster, and award-winning social advocate from forging ahead to change the world. Born in Sudan, raised and educated in Australia, and now living in London, Abdel-Magied epitomizes the power of diversity for business and people. She’s written a best-selling book, currently owns a race car company, and by the way, recently took up skiing because well, why not?

Fortuitously, I heard her speak during the Diversity and Leadership Forum onsite at the SAP Ariba Live event in the week leading up to International Women’s Day. Here’s a sampling of insights from Abdel-Magied’s rousing talk during a luncheon session entitled, “Surfacing Unconscious Bias.”

Yassmin Abdel-Magied epitomizes the power of diversity for business and people.

Challenge your assumptions

After walking on stage wearing traditional Muslim dress, Abdel-Magied ingeniously drove home her point that first impressions aren’t always accurate by changing her outfit two more times, becoming in rapid succession an oil rig worker complete with hard hat, followed by a casually attired office worker in black jeans and t-shirt. With each new costume, she challenged the audience to uncover their unconscious biases and overcome them.

“I’m the same person regardless of what I’m wearing…We get bombarded with tons of information at any given moment, but our brains can only handle about 40 pieces of information so we create shortcuts, some of which are useful,” she said. “The assumptions you make about someone who looks like me, where did you get that information? The information creating those shortcuts isn’t necessarily accurate.”

Look past the superficial

Noting that we all have unconscious bias leading to business risk that hurts people and companies, Abdel-Magied encouraged the audience to sponsor someone different.

“Try to look beyond what you first see. So often we don’t look past the superficial. Each and every one of us in this room has incredible privilege. Don’t feel bad. Use that privilege,” she said. “Extend that to others. Find someone who doesn’t share your experience and open doors for them. Everyone in this room has the capacity to change someone else’s life.”

Question your habits and listen

Challenging cultural assumptions is core to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Abdel-Magied suggested “unfreezing, changing and refreezing” accepted organizational norms as the path to real transformation. “These words like diversity and inclusion are the result of a history that’s difficult and a cultural context that lives outside our workplace. Everyone walks into the workplace with this baggage from the world around them.”

Abdel-Magied recommended people question their working and social habits, extending beyond the people and places they feel comfortable with. At the same time, she doesn’t ascribe to gender blindness. Here’s her response to a question from a man who wanted to learn more about diversity by joining other diversity groups.

“If you want to enter non-affiliated spaces, the most important thing for you is to listen with an open heart. When people are complaining, know that it’s not about you. Learn to separate yourself so you can objectively say your experience is like this, how can I actually help,” she said. “We’re not interested in whether you call yourself a feminist or not. We’ll look at your actions.”

Listening to wise women

As uplifting as the session was, it didn’t end there. Host Julie Gerdeman, Vice President of the Digital Transformation Organization at SAP Ariba, encouraged the audience to write down on post-it notes advice women in their lives have given them – whether colleague, mentor, friend or family member. The notes were displayed on a white board outside the meeting room and shared online supporting Bravo, a Procurious group celebrating the contributions of women in procurement.

I’m looking forward to a time when women won’t need a designated “day” of recognition, but until then there’s plenty of work for us all.